Cold Corpse, Hot Trail

by Peter Brandvold

  There was a sound like wet sheets flapping in a breeze. Shadows flicked across the sand before Primrose.

  “Ah, shit,” Schmidt said to his left. “Here those mangy buzzards come again.”

  Primrose tipped his head back as far as it would go and lifted his aching eyes. Buzzards were careening above the wash, waiting their turn at the dead Indians around the bend to the west. Several occasionally swooped low for a better look at Primrose and Schmidt. The sergeant shouted curses, trying to hold the birds at bay, but by now his voice was so hoarse, it barely carried even to Primrose ten feet to his right.

  The birds would get braver as the night descended. The thought churned the bile in Primrose’s gut, and he again tried to move his arms and legs. It was no use. His wrists were tied behind his back, his ankles firmly bound with knotted rawhide. Even if the limbs were free, he doubted he’d have been able to move against the sand encasing him here like wet cement.

  “Why the Jehovah couldn’t they have just shot us?” Schmidt wheezed. “I’d have done as much for them.”

  “Speak for yourself, Sergeant.”

  “What? You enjoy the prospect of buzzards eating out your eyes before you’re even dead?”

  Again, Primrose tried to move, grunting with the effort. It made him somewhat breathless. “I haven’t yet given up hope.”

  “Well, that’s real admirable. My hat’s off to you. But we’re dyin’, Lieutenant. And there ain’t nothin’ all your West Point schoolin’ can do—”

  “Oh, hell,” Primrose said, cutting Schmidt off.

  Schmidt rolled his eyes around. “What, what?”

  Primrose stared at the gap in the brush where he’d seen the brown shadow slink. “Something on the bank . . . just moved.”

  “I don’t see anything,” Schmidt said after a minute.

  Primrose’s eyes scoured the brush. There wasn’t a breath of breeze. Seventy yards down the ravine, the birds barked and quarreled. Gray-blue shadows leaned out from the bank.

  The lieutenant peered into the gap in the brush marking a game trail. His heart leapt, and he stopped breathing. In the shadowy gap—actually a tunnel in the ironwood and willows—was the round, snub-nosed head of a mountain lion. Unless Primrose’s fried brains and eyes were playing tricks on him.

  He hoped against hope they were.

  Behind the head, a tail swished. It was one of those wily, catlike whips. The mountain lion’s ears stood up, then flattened back down against the head.

  Shit.

  “You see it?” Primrose said, expending himself again by trying to move against the ungiving sand.

  Schmidt didn’t say anything for a moment. He exhaled sharply. In his voice there was no venom, only hopeless-ness. “Son of a two-bit whore.”

  “Maybe he’ll bypass us for the carrion farther on down the ravine.”

  “You tinhorn son of a bitch. Just had to trail us, didn’t you? Showin’ off for the major. Now you not only don’t have the money you rode down here for, but you’ve widowed the major’s daughter . . . and got me killed in the bargain!”

  “I fail to see your logic, Sergeant. Your greed compelled you to kill your own soldiers. To back-shoot them. Now, you’ve gotten yourself killed as well.”

  “It pleases me no end that you’re gonna die too, Lieutenant . . . with that corncob still rammed up your tight West Point ass.”

  “If you’d be quiet, he might leave.”

  “That ain’t the kinda luck I’ve been havin’.”

  The cat lay there for a long time, staring at them, occasionally giving his tail that little insouciant thrash, like a barn cat waiting outside a mouse hole. Gradually, cool night shadows filled the ravine. The buzzards squawked like old ladies fighting over a parasol.

  The cat rose to a crouch and padded toward the men, its dun coat flecked with dust and seeds, the tail swishing stiffly, the tufted end curled slightly, like the popper at the end of a bullwhip.

  “Oh, Christ,” wheezed the sergeant. “Here he fuckin’ comes.”

  The lieutenant kept his voice down. “Hold still.”

  “Where might I be goin’?”

  “Hold your head still and try to contain your fear. They can smell it.”

  Schmidt snorted.

  Primrose drew air slowly into his pinched lungs, shaking off his fear as he stared at the cat padding toward them, crouched low, its tail straight out behind it now and about six inches above the ground. Six feet away, it stopped and slid its gaze between the two men, its translucent copper pupils slowly opening and closing in its yellow eyes.

  Primrose could smell the animal’s gamy peppery odor. A low, keening growl rose from deep in its belly. The fur at the back of its neck stood on end, and its long whiskers vibrated, as if brushed by a breeze.

  The lieutenant breathed slowly in, then out. . . . “Shit,” groaned the sergeant.

  “Shhh.”

  The cat hunkered down on its belly, rested its chin on its front paws, drew its back legs tight against its ribs.

  Primrose gritted his teeth. His stomach clenched. The cat rose up slightly, stretched out its front paws, clawed at the earth, making faint scratching sounds in the sand.

  “Oh, for chrissakes, just get it over with!” Schmidt bellowed as loudly as his damaged vocal chords allowed.

  The cat dashed toward him, its jaws opening wide. Only six inches from the sergeant’s face, it jerked and screamed.

  The cat suddenly appeared to swerve away from the sergeant and head for Primrose, who gritted his teeth and closed his eyes, knowing his time had come and wishing, like the sergeant, that the beast be mercifully swift.

  He felt the wind of the beast’s diving body.

  The cat squealed. There was a thud.

  Sand sprayed the lieutenant’s face, sticking to his bared teeth and bloody cheeks.

  Perplexed, he opened his eyes slightly, peered through the slits.

  The cat lay before him, on its right shoulder. It blinked its eyes several times, kicked its back legs, propelling its head closer to Primrose. Then the legs stopped moving, the light left the cat’s yellow and copper eyes, and its lids dropped halfway closed. Blood trickled out the right corner of its gaping mouth.

  The shot, which Primrose only now realized he’d heard at the same time the cat had screamed, chased its own, flat echo around the ravine.

  Neither Primrose nor Schmidt said anything. Both men stared, awestruck at the dead cat lying between and before them, the half-open eyes staring up at the lieutenant. After several minutes, the thud of hooves rose up ravine. They grew louder until horse and rider appeared in the corner of the lieutenant’s left eye. The horse was a grulla covered in red desert dust. The rider wore a long, cream duster over a faded blue shirt, tan denims, and a flat-brimmed black hat. A green neckerchief was knotted loosely around his neck.

  Hawk reined the horse up before Primrose and Schmidt, peered down at them over his right stirrup. The high, broad cheekbones, lake-green eyes, and dragoon-style mustache were shaded by the hat brim.

  Primrose was giddy with relief. “Oh, for pity sake,” he said through a long sigh. “Hawk . . .”

  “Who?” asked the sergeant.

  Primrose shook his head as much as the sand allowed. “Get us out of here, Hawk.”

  Hawk swung down from his saddle, dropped the reins, and removed his folding shovel from behind his blanket roll. He hung his hat on his saddle horn and began digging, throwing the sand behind him. When he’d dug down to the lieutenant’s waist, he cut the man’s hands free. His legs were still buried. Hawk offered his canteen.

  “Not too much.”

  Primrose took a breath and drank, wincing when the water hit his parched lips.

  “I said not too much,” Hawk said. “You’ll puke it back up.”

  Choking, water dribbling down his chin, the lieutenant lowered the canteen. “You don’t know how good that tastes.”

  Schmidt growled, “You might get me out of here and give me a shot of
that.”

  “How’d you end up with him?” Hawk said, nodding at the sergeant, taking the canteen back, and ramming the cork in the lip.

  “I stumbled onto their camp last night. Got Schmidt and the outlaw woman. The doxie was about to escape herself. I even got the money.” Primrose looked around at the dead Indians upon which the buzzards eagerly fed.

  Hawk had slung his canteen over the saddle horn, ignoring Schmidt’s pleas for water. He turned to Primrose, picked up the shovel, and resumed digging the sand out from around his knees. “What happened?”

  “Indians,” Primrose said with a weary sigh. “Then . . . the outlaws. They got the money back.”

  Hawk slung a load of sand behind him. “The women?”

  “I don’t remember a thing between the initial Indian attack and waking up right here, beside the good sergeant. For all I know, the women are dead. Maybe the outlaws took them back.”

  Hawk rammed the shovel in the sand. “Finish digging yourself out.” Turning, he toed a stirrup and swung onto the grulla.

  “Hey, what about water for me?” Schmidt called weakly.

  Ignoring the plea, Hawk gigged the grulla down the ravine, tracing the gradual bend as several buzzards scampered away from their carrion, screaming angrily. His horse shied at the scattered, bloody corpses and the viscera strewn by the birds.

  Amidst the bodies and body parts, Hawk looked for the girl. He hoped he wouldn’t find her here, that the outlaws had taken her back.

  He was riding west along the darkening wash when he stopped suddenly. A slender, long-haired, blood-smeared body was staked out at the base of the southern bank, near a dead horse and a cold fire upon which strips of meat lay charred. A buzzard was perched on the girl’s bare right knee, staring at her—a bald, hook-nosed demon awaiting another soul.

  Hawk clawed his Russian from his hip and blew the bird’s head off. He dismounted, knelt beside the girl, touched a finger to her neck. Her pulse was faint.

  He cut her limbs free of the stakes, grabbed his canteen from his saddle horn, and cradling her head in his left arm, held the flask to her mouth. A few sips passed her lips; most dribbled down her chin and neck. She coughed and winced, shook her head and moaned.

  She opened her eyes with a start, and glanced fearfully around the ravine. She looked at the headless buzzard lying beside her, then slid her gaze to Hawk.

  Her voice was thin, nearly inaudible. “Please don’t leave me for the scavengers. . . .” Her eyelids closed, and her head sagged to the side. Her chest fell still.

  Hawk shook her gently. “Estella.”

  Dead.

  The night breeze swept her hair across her swollen, bloody face. Cradling her head in his arm, Hawk smoothed her hair back from her cheeks.

  “You’ll be avenged.”

  He gentled her head to the ground, stood, and retrieved the dead horse’s saddle blanket. He shook it out, wrapped the girl in it, tied it with rope, and eased the body facedown across the grulla’s rear. Swinging into the saddle, he rode back around the bend.

  In the gathering night, Lieutenant Primrose was digging the sergeant out of his would-be sand grave. The lieutenant had dug down to the sergeant’s chest. He’d removed his tunic. He was dusty, sunburned, bloody, and nearly asleep on his feet, grunting with each toss of the sand.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Hawk asked, halting the horse before him.

  The lieutenant stopped, turned to him. Breathing hard, holding the shovel in both hands across his thighs, he glanced at the blanket-wrapped body behind Hawk’s cantle. He looked at Hawk. “What’s it look like I’m doing? I’m digging up my prisoner. I’m taking him back to Bowie to face a court-martial.”

  Hawk drew the Russian. He thumbed back the hammer, extended the gun at Schmidt. Primrose stared, disbelieving, mouth agape. Schmidt’s own mouth and eyes snapped wide.

  “Wait . . . no!”

  Hawk’s revolver cracked. The bullet plunked through Schmidt’s forehead, just above his left brow. The sergeant’s head snapped back, then sagged to his left shoulder.

  Primrose had flinched and leapt back at the shot. Now he stared at Schmidt. As Hawk holstered the Russian, the lieutenant turned to him, his face turning wine-colored behind the sunburn and bruises. His voice was raspy and brittle. “Y-you had no right to do that. That man was my prisoner. I was taking him back to stand trial.”

  “I saved you the trouble.” Hawk reached down, grabbed the shovel from the lieutenant’s hand. “I’ll be needing this.” He hooked the shovel’s lanyard over his saddle horn and kneed the grulla forward.

  Primrose watched, bunching his swollen lips with rage, as Hawk rode up the ravine and disappeared in the purple dusk.

  Hawk buried the girl on a knoll above an ancient riverbed lined with cottonwoods. He mounded the grave with dirt and, to keep predators out, stones.

  He fashioned a crude cross from driftwood. He said no words over the grave, because he didn’t believe in such things anymore. He merely held his hat before his chest for a few quiet moments, the dark night gathered around him, several coyotes howling from ridges.

  He swung up into his saddle, descended the knoll, rode along a wash for a mile, and made camp on a sloping shoulder of ground angling out from a high, chalky butte. A spring bubbled out of the rocks, feeding some short grass and spindly brush. The water trickled down the slope and disappeared in the wash.

  Hawk kept his fire small. A half hour after he’d hobbled his horse, he was sitting by his fire, eating beans and drinking coffee. A horse blew and kicked a stone.

  A tired voice rose from the darkness. “It’s Primrose.”

  Hawk said nothing. Knees raised, his boot heels snug in the dirt near the fire ring, he continued to eat.

  The horse nickered, and Hawk heard hoof falls coming along the wash. Behind him and to his right, his own grulla lifted an answering whinny. Through the shrubs and boulders, a shadow moved. Tack squeaked as a man stepped down from a saddle. Boots clacked on the rocks. A figure appeared—Primrose, his tunic torn and bloody, his hat misshapen, his face so swollen it appeared round in the dim light.

  He was leading a horse—one of the Indians’ short-legged mustangs, with a saddle that must have been worn by the mount the Indians had been roasting. The horse looked about as comfortable with the saddle as the lieutenant looked with all those bruises on his face.

  He stopped in the shadows on the other side of the fire, his shoulders slumped with fatigue. “You’re still going after them?”

  Hawk nodded and forked more beans into his mouth.

  Primrose studied him, lines spoking his eyes. “The girl?”

  Hawk lifted a shoulder and swallowed the beans in his mouth, dipped his fork for more. “I’ve come all this way, I’m gonna finish the job. Those killers don’t deserve to live. They’re due a reckoning, and I’m gonna serve it up raw.”

  Primrose studied him skeptically, saw the deputy U.S. marshal’s badge pinned to his vest. The lieutenant shook his head. “You’re not a lawman anymore, Hawk.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong, Lieutenant.” Hawk chewed. “I am a lawman. I’m the only lawman anymore.”

  Primrose looked off, turned back to Hawk. “I think you’re pure-dee crazy, Hawk. But I reckon you’re my only hope of getting the money back. I’m going with you.” He turned and led the Indian pony around the fire, toward where Hawk had hobbled the grulla.

  Hawk sipped his coffee and stared into the fire.

  14.

  “WHY BUY THE COW . . . ?”

  SEVEN days later, Waylon Kilroy sat in a stone crevice on a low rimrock above a narrow, boulder-strewn, sunpummeled arroyo in southern Sonora. He trained his field glasses on the parched valley that he and the gang had traversed a few hours ago.

  “Jesus, you do that well,” he said, taking steady, deep breaths. “I swear, girl, you must be part-French.”

  Below the ridge’s rocky lip, Kilroy’s jeans were pulled down and bunched around his boots.
He was half-sitting on a rock thumb protruding from the nook’s wall. Between his naked knees, Saradee knelt, her gloved hands resting on Kilroy’s thighs. Her straw sombrero—which she’d taken from one of the three Mexican miners she’d killed a few days earlier—bobbed slightly as she worked.

  There was a wet sound as she lifted her head, the sombrero’s brim tipping back to reveal her face, which still bore the scabbed abrasions and partial swelling of the Yaquis’ savagery. “Any sign of Valverde?”

  Kilroy shook his head. “I know that was him I seen earlier, though. After all these years, I can recognize that ugly bastard from five miles away. I swear he can smell me just as soon as I cross the Rio Grande. Comes runnin’ like a dog with his tongue hangin’, sniffin’ around for a bone.”

  “Let’s kill him,” Saradee said, looking up at Kilroy from the shaded nook, his member in her gloved hand. “I don’t want to share our hard-earned money with these damn greasers.”

  “He can sure make life miserable down here, but killin’ him might do us more harm than good.” Waylon glanced down at Saradee, frowning. “Snap to it, girl. I’m losin’ my pleasure.”

  When she’d gone back to work, Kilroy lifted his gaze above the ridge, stopped as a vagrant thought struck him, and looked back down at her bobbing hat. Crouched there between his knees, she was in a rather vulnerable position. He could draw the big Remy from its shoulder holster and pop a pill through her beautiful, cunning head before she knew what was happening.

  He wouldn’t do it now, of course. Not only was she working her sweet bliss on him, but both their gangs were waiting fifty yards down the canyon wall, near the opening of an old mine shaft.

  Staring at the girl’s shabby straw hat, around the steepled crown of which a bluebottle fly buzzed, Kilroy lifted the corners of his mustache. It was a good idea. He’d hold on to it for later, when her men were out of the way and he’d finally gotten his fill of the bewitching outlaw princess.